“Indo-European #Exposed“
Join as a member to continue learning
Find out more
Find out more
All lessons, tools and premium features (and there’s a LOT of them :).
Already a member?
Already a member? Log in here
This article belongs to the following series:
Audio Speed
Dark Mode
I’ve recently discovered the podcast ‘The history of the English language’, which has over 140 episodes, the first ten being about the indo european origins. I don’t know if you know about it Emanuel, but I’d definitely recommend it. Episodes | The History of English Podcast
No, I didn’t, thanks a lot :)!
I want to explain that Albanian words looks like they are the root of Indo-European languages.
First example it is about word “to bear” (carry).
Corresponding word in Albanian it is “bie” which mean to ”bring”
An another example it the word “doru” = tree.
Corresponding word in Albania it is “dru” and it mean tree.
If you want to discover more probably you mast start learning Albanian
Hi
I found the video very interesting . I am a 5 languages speaker but the 6th der Deutsch is really diffcult ,especailly the cases . The question :what happens if you dont give value for the same .After all ,it is a foreign language. We speak or write without taking into account the cases .
GN
You can have conversations without cases to an extend, but it’ll sound bad and be straining for natives.
What languages do you speak (apart from English, of course)?
I have always tried to research the origins ,and changes, of english words just for the fun of it. If I start this, with german, I’ll know that this language has clicked in my head.
Fascinating. Really enjoyed it and shared with others. Thank you.
Wow, are you making your way through all posts so far in one go :) ?!
Very interesting enjoyable and informative!
Ausgezeichnet! Da ich Schülerin auf Girls’ Latin School (Boston) war, freue ich mich daß er von dem harten C in Latein spricht.
I’m Spanish, living in the Netherlands, working in English, French and German, and lucky to have friends from many different countries. The different evolution of the romance and germanic languages has always interested me, and I’m still baffled by how completely alien Finnish and Basque are compared to any other modern european languages.
I understand not everyone shares our passion for the history of the languages we speak, but to me, this is one of the aspects that makes learning foreign languages an adventure, rather than a dredge.
Thanks for investing your time and effort in these insights, they are most welcome amigo mio.
Oh yeah, these “misstfit” languages within a sea of related ones are a real miracle.
Did you know that for Finish they had to invent a whole bunch of words to make it suitable for legal trials? I think it was when they became independent. Before, Finnish would be a common tongue but the law and sciences were done in Russian or Swedish and the “peasant” Finnish just lacked a lot of vocabulary to draw up a constitution for instance. Luckily, they do have compounds so they work was easy :)
I think Hungarian also fits in the “misfit” group.
Yeah, there are some ties to Finnish.
I find all this stuff fascinating and have often spent lots of time watching the excellent Langfocus videos as well as looking up words in Dutch, Swedish, Norwiegen etc. and see how they compare with English and German and reading about the etymology. And then I think to myself: “What are you doing you idiot – you’re meant to be learning GERMAN!”.
Hahaha, the distraction is strong in you :)!
Hi. I love etymology and find it super useful when learning. One of the reasons I follow your blog and not much else :)
I’m really surprised by that video, though. I’m French/English bilingual, alright at German, and also study (and understand) Spanish and Italian, with some Latin in the past. I see the connection with English and German, the video does a great job of showing it, but what the hell happened to those South-West European languages to make them so different from all the PIE descendants in the video?!
If you want to learn far more, check out The History of English podcast. It starts with proto-Indo European and follows language migration / development throughout Europe. I’m finding it fascinating!
Be sure to include the word podcast when searching for the title. The History of English is a different podcast. Found that out after subscribing to the wrong one. Great podcast!
Thanks for the recommendation. Sounds great :)! Danke für den Tipp.
I really enjoy these “word rambles” as the late John Ciardi, an American etymologist, called them in his weekly contributions to the PBS radio Morning Show.
Very interesting. I’d like to learn more about this.
Sorry…..but I have to agree with Amerikanerin’s first paragraph. But that being said, thank you for exposing us to it.
Fascinating and much appreciated. I’ve always been interested in the etymology of English words (Latin, Greek, Germanic roots, loanwords from other languages, etc.), but I haven’t often come across discussions of Indo-European roots. I had to learn German – with you – to get a better handle on that. :) Danke schön!
I am so thankful to Emanuel and to people who made it possible to learn, even when some of us are not currently in the situation to pay. Thanks for helping me make my goals come true.
Hallo lieber Emmanuel
Wir sind am sexte Tag des Adventskalander !
Warum die Etymologie zählt aber mit gemässigten Dose . Es geht von der Herkunft oder den Wurzeln eines Wortes an .
Heute mehr als drei milliarden Menschen benützen eine PIA ( proto-indoeuropäische) Sprache. Aus dieser Wurzel haben wir mehr als 450 Töchter Sprache auf Eurasiatische Gebieten . ES bewundert mich ein solche Vergleichbarkeit der Lauten, konsonnanten, ihren historischen Veränderung .
Wie Avestan und Sanskrit Sprachen sind Vergleichbar mit germanischen Sprachen ! Wir müssen die Linguisten/ Sprachwissenschaftlern/ Philologen wie Franz Popp, Brüdern Grim, Ferdinad de Sausure zu bedanken . In besondres muss die Lautquadralatere zu zitieren, die ganze linguistische Gesetze verkörpert.
Bis Morgen
Die Arbeit, die diese Leute, die du erwähnt hast, gemacht haben, ist wirklich Wahnsinn. Ich habe großen Respekt davor!!
This was very interesting! The discovery of Indo-European and other language families was one of the greatest accomplishments of 19th century linguistics, spearheaded in large part by the great German historical linguists of the period after the British in India discovered that Sanskrit was surprisingly similar to the Greek and Latin that they had learned in school. There are no surviving examples of Indo-European, but linguists have reconstructed it and even created a dictionary based on deep analyses of verbal changes that regularly take place in those languages that derive from this source.
Interestingly (well, to me), the failure to recognize common linguistic roots was also the cause for the idiotic “rules” so many English students learned for decades such as not to end a sentence with a preposition or not to split an infinitive. Scholars in the 18th century were embarrassed by English’s unruliness compared to Latin and French. These artificial rules stemmed from an attempt to cure what was seen as a fault. Scholars did not understand that English is Germanic in origin and carries within it the impulse to separate verbs and prepositions at certain times. The Oxford English Dictionary officially set aside the split infinitive thing in the 1990’s, though English does not have an official rulemaker like French does.
It’s funny because I do understand how a person could be completely bored or turned off by this, but I must be a nerd because it is absolutely fascinating to me. I love, love, love the big picture of how languages change and split into new languages. You can really get a feel for how the language is alive and how it changes to suit the needs of the current population using it. If anyone else is interested I would highly recommend the book “The Loom of Language” by Frederick Bodmer. Bit old, but full of valuable information.
To me, the big picture is interesting and the connections help me remember vocabulary and also, it kind of trains the brain in creative , abstract thinking.
But I bail out when it comes to what sound evolved to which one at what time and all that.
So basically, I bail out at the actual work of etymology. I really just “consume” it :D
Funny, the sound changes are something I find interesting. Most of the time I don’t really gain anything from knowing it, and a lot of times I forget it anyway, but it’s still fun to read about. Kind of like being a pack rat for information, I guess.
Emmanuel danke sehr TOLL